Kate Gilbert is an artist and activist deeply committed to supporting the arts as a catalyst for transformation—of our cities, our relationships and ourselves. In her artwork, curatorial projects and public art organization she strives to facilitate joy and spontaneity and to help propel public appreciation of contemporary art practices.

Gilbert’s artwork explores the relational hierarchies of objects and people. It employs humor, simulation and meditative observation to question objects of comfort, the retail systems they operate in, our consumptive behaviors and our collective fears. It then suggests alternatives.

Her sculptures and installations, often simulations of interiors, shelters, clothing and objects of desire, are created with inexpensive or impermanent materials such as building insulation, fabric and found asphalt. They provoke one to explore failed utopias, the relationship of designers to their clients, and ultimately leaders to our communities.

Gilbert’s 20-year administrative experience with Boston arts and design organizations culminated in the development of the Greenway’s public art strategy in 2011, and in 2014-2015, the opening of the artLAB, an outdoor laboratory for experimental public art at the Lawn on D. She is now parlaying that experience into Now + There, an arts organization dedicated to delivering impactful temporary public art projects in Greater Boston. Now + There’s first project, a commission with Paul Ramirez Jonas, opened in Boston in August 2016.